When I look back on relationships I think it’s fair to say that my romantic partners were not really so interested in me. They were interested in their own feelings and agenda with respect to me without being interested in the actual me. Now that may seem a subtle distinction, maybe no distinction at all. But for me it’s all the distinction in the world. It’s the difference between good and proper relationship and not.

This is not to imply that I was any better a partner than they were. I doubt if I was terribly interested in them either for the same reasons. In that sense we deserved each other. But I always felt a kind of repulsion, like something wasn’t right there, and it stopped me going along with the prevailing agenda.

Was it an innate desire on my part for a better connection, better than the usual co-dependent, co-existing thing that most seem fine with? Such a high aspiration may be unrealistic and I’m hardly capable of it anyway. But then delusion can be a powerful driving force so my dogged resolve to avoid the wrong and plod on in hope of the right was probably of some value. Deluded maybe. Determined certainly.